Charles j



(No Model.)

0. J. EAM ES.

REDUCTION OF IRON ORE.

Patented May 28, 1889.

UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

CHARLES J. EAMES, OF NEWV YORK, N. Y.

REDUCTION OF IRON ORE.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 404,181, dated May 28, 1889.

Application filed January 19, 1889. Serial No. 296,836. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, CHARLES J. EAMES, a citizen of the United States, residing at New York city, in the State of New York, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in the Reduction of Iron Ore for the Manufacture of Iron and Steel Direct from the Ore;

and I hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the same, such as will enable others skilled in the art of metallurgy to apply the invention.

Heretofore in the reduction of iron ores, especially by such processes as the blast-furnace or stack process and allied processes, where the flame or heated gases came in direct contact with or permeated the mass under treatment, or where the heated gases,

flame, &c., 'swept over and reverberated on the mass to be treated, as in the hearthreverberatory or roasting processes, it has been the practice to mingle with the carbon or reducing agent and the ore a flux of some character, or to employ acoating or protective covering to prevent too rapid combustion of the carbon; and this has heretofore been deemed essential to a successful working wherever coke, soft or hard coal, or any equvialent reducing agent which combined with oxygen readily and at a low temperature has been employed.

The object I have in view is to dispense with any flux-such as lime or its equivalent-or any protecting coating'or other medium for the protection of the carbon or re tardation of its combustion, and employ only coke, soft or hard coal, and similar soft carbons intermingled with the ore to be reduced in all such processes as apply the heat by gases which pass over and through the mass to be treated, whereby the reduction process i5 simplified,impurities prevented from entering the metal, and shortness or brittleness of the iron avoided.

To this end the invention, generally stated, may be said to consist in subjecting layers composed of a mixture of coke, hard coal, or their equivalentscarbons which oxidize at a low temperature- (arranged alternately with layers of carbon alone,) to heated carbonic oxide or equivalent neutral gases which permeate the mass, all as will hereinafter more fully appear.

I will now proceed to describe more specifically the preferred manner of applying my invention, and for facility in doing the same I have illustrated apparatus suitable therefor, in which Figure 1 is a vertical section of areducingstack. I Fig. 2 is an elevation of said reducingstack; and 3 is a sectional plan view on the line 00 00, Fig. 1, showing the drop-grate.

Like letters refer to like parts wherever they occur.

Any suitable apparatus may be employed. That shown answers the purpose as well as any I know of. It consists of an outer shell, 1, of boiler-plate, of, say,five feet diameter at the base and three feet diameter at the top, or any other desired taper which will permit the charge to drop out freely when the grate of the stack is let down. This shell 1 is supported on a square arched base, 2, is lined with firebrick, as at 3, and provided with a drop-grate, 4, which may be of two sections hinged at the side, so as to fall away from the center, and a chamber, 5, is formed below the grate by means of a slide, 6, which can be drawn out to obtain a natural draft for the stack.

7 indicates a blast-pipe communicating with chamber 5, and said pipe should have a suitable valve.

8 8 indicate a series of small openings or ports at the base of the stack, which may be closed by doors or by plugs of fire-brick, as preferred.

9 indicates a damper controlled by a chain,

10, and which may be used to close the top of the stack when drawing the charge, so as to avoid drafts over the heated reduced ore after combustion upon which the process itself depends.

In carrying out my process of reduction I first form a base or bed stratum, A, of lump carbon, which may be of coke-such as Oonncllsville cokeor graphitic carbonsuch as is found at Cranston, Rhode Island, and in other localitiesthe lumps to be of such size as to give an open or reticulated character to the stratum-say from three to fiveinches in diameterand the stratum to be about six (6) or eight (8) inches thick. This stratum A is then ignited, and by means of the natural draft produced by withdrawing slide 6 or by the use of blast 7 is brought to a highly-incandescent condition, more carbon being added from time to time, if desired or required, to preserve the desired depth of said stratum A. For purposes of starting ignition in stratum A wood or other kindling may be used below the stratum, as in building an ordinary fire.

\Vhen the stack is thoroughly heated and stratum A thoroughly ignited, the draft or blast is cut olt, and the ore to be reduced, in a granulated condition, admixed with carbon in a like condition, is to be charged into the stack as follows: Upon the bed stratum A, I place a stratum, a, of the material to be treated, said stratum composed of an admixture of from twenty (20) to forty (l0) percent. of granulated carbon-such as coke, hard coal, graphitic carbon, (hereinbet'ore referred to,) or their equivalentsaur.l the iron ore in a like granulated condition-about the size of a grain of wheatsaid stratum a to be from two (2) to four (l) inches in thickness. Above the stratum a, I place a stratum, Z1, composed of carbon only, of any of the forms above mentioned, in lump form, so as to preserve an open or reticulated structure readily permeable by the gases, said stratum Z) to correspond in thickness to the stratum a-that is to say, from two (2) to four (4:) inches thick. lthen add alternate layers of the admixed carbon iron ore in granular form (a af a, the.) and lump carbon alone (1) U U", the.) untilthe stack is filled to within six or eight inches of the top. \Vhen the stack is thus charged, I

open a suliicient number of the ports 8 8 epposite the bed-stratum A to admit sulticicnt air to induce low combustion in the bedstratum A, and the highly-heated neutral carbonic oxide thus formed will permeate the layers a l) a Z), &c., producing a steady and uniform reduction of the iron ore without unduly consuming or exhausting the carbon contained in the strata.

By examining the top layer or stratum of iron ore, &c., it can readily be determined when the reduction of the iron ore is complete bythe agglutination of the particles and other characteristics well known to the skilled operator. The damper 9 and the ports 8 8 are then closed, the slide 6 withdrawn,

and the grate 4 lowered to dump the charge of reduced ore into the pit or space below the arches. The atmosphere of carbonic oxide which surrounds it will prevent oxidation of the sponge while cooling, an dcthe u nconsu med carbon from strata Z) 1) 0 &c., can be separated from the mass and used to form the bed-stratum A of the next charge.

l-Iavin g thus described my invention, what-1 claim, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, 1s

1. The process herein described for reducing iron ores, which consists in subjecting alternately-arranged strata or layers of carbon and granulated iron ore and carbon in admixture to currents of heated carbonic oxide, which are caused to permeate said strata, substantially as and for the purposes specified.

2. The process herein described for reducing iron ore, which consists in subjecting alternately-arranged strata or layers of carbon and granulated iron ore admixed with carbon to currents of heated carbonic oxide, which are formed in a base-strata of carbon and which permeate the superimposed strata of iron ore, &c., substantially as and for the purposes specified.

As a step in the herein-described process of reducing iron ore, the arrangement of a bed-strata of graphitic carbon a means of generating carbonic oxide, and a series of superimposed alternate layers of carbon alone and an admixture of carbon and iron ore, substantiall y as and for the purposes specified.

In testimony whereof I altix my signature, in presence of two witnesses, this 19th day of January, 1989.

CHARLES J. 'EAMES.

\Vitnesses:

E. T. WALKER, F. It. CORNWALL. 

